Kyle Tucker Stopped Hitting for Power and Started Striking Out. Is It Time To Worry?

[RandallPnkFloyd]

Image courtesy of © David Banks-Imagn Images

In baseball, more than in other sports, two things can be true at once. As such, we can acknowledge that Kyle Tucker is still providing immense value to the Chicago Cubs lineup. Since the start of June, he's reaching base at a .380 clip, largely courtesy of a 16.0% walk rate. He's also got a wRC+ of 127 for the month. Neither detail is surprising, as we've already seen that the team can benefit from his skill set in the midst of an extended slump. The other side of that coin is that as the team is struggling to score runs (2.2 runs per game in their last five, as of this writing), Tucker's absence of power, in conjunction with his creeping penchant for striking out, is becoming much more noticeable. 

Tucker's isolated power since the calendar flipped over to June is .171. There's some important context to that figure, on two levels. The first is the gravity of such a low ISO for a hitter of Tucker's stature. It isn't just his lowest this season; it's his lowest since May of 2023 (.140) and his third-lowest in an individual month since he became a full-time player post-2020. Perhaps more concerning is the fact that Tucker is punching out at a 26.0% rate, more than double what he did in each of the first two months. Not since 2020 has he had a mark even remotely near that for a full month.

The other layer here is, of course, the timeline. On June 1, Tucker jammed his finger on an awkward slide into second base. While it's impossible to know the extent to which he's being affected by that, it does provide us with a clear threshold between Tucker's previous trends at the plate and what we've witnessed in the two weeks since. 

Let's talk about the power first. It's hard to generate power when you're not making quality contact, and Tucker's hard-hit rate has declined significantly this month, regardless of pitch type: 

Fastballs taking a back seat in the Hard-Hit% department is perhaps the largest concern depicted above. It's the pitch type against which he's consistently posted the highest hard-hit rates throughout his career. It's a sharp, sharp decline, too. He made hard contact against fastballs 58.3 percent of the time in May. He's at just 40.0% thus far in June. 

While bat speed isn't the tell-all factor in generating power (especially given that we recently lauded the collective for trading speed for efficiency in that respect), there's an aspect of this that could be an indicator as to why Tucker is failing to generate quality contact more frequently: 

Kyle Tucker’s bat speed averages 71 MPH, but it’s dipped below 68 MPH over the past two weeks. Likely just a blip—could be swinging at tougher pitches—but still a trend worth watching. pic.twitter.com/w0kBDvPL8H

— Brendan Miller (@brendan_cubs) June 14, 2025

As Brendan notes, it's possible that this could just be a blip. It's a small sample, after all. But it says a lot that Tucker is having difficulty generating quality contact while simultaneously putting the ball on the ground at his highest frequency in a given month (35.7%). In that light, the power decline isn't a difficult aspect to explain. The contact isn't there; nor is the elevation. The other layer, however, could provide some further insight. 

I mentioned Tucker's massive K% this month. It's not necessarily the result of chasing more pitches, or even taking more pitches for strikes. His 17.0% chase rate is lower than it was in March and April, and his called strike percentage is only about two percentage points higher than it was in either of the first two months (14.9%). He's just...whiffing. 

Tucker's whiff rate has climbed to 27.8% this month. It's at an even 20.0% inside the strike zone. Breaking and off-speed pitches have proven a particular source of woe for him this month, as they check in at whiff rates of 53.6% and 45.5%, respectively. More concerning is the fact that he's not getting more of them from opposing pitchers, either. He's actually experienced a decrease in breaking pitches, while offspeed stuff has maintained throughout the first three months of the year. But he's battling those pitches in a way that we didn't really see in the first two months. 

While the power dip and the strikeout leap are certainly different layers of Tucker's June struggles, it's hard to describe them as two entirely separate elements within his offensive performance. The former can likely be attributed to the finger sprain on some level (if not serving as the main thing), but it's also possible that it's affecting his overall ability to make contact—let alone quality contact.

So, should we be concerned? 

It's hard to be, when you're talking about a hitter of Kyle Tucker's stature, especially because there is still value there in his ability to work counts. If this was a situation where the walk rate deteriorated, then you could start to draw conclusions about his approach escaping him. But he's clearly working through the lingering impact of injury on some level, leading him to both struggle with overall contact and, subsequently, contact quality.

Ultimately, it's a two-week sample. It's hard to get too worked up about. It's glaring, to be sure, given the team's struggle to plate runs in the past week. But perhaps Monday's off day was just the ticket to serve as a springboard for a healthier Tucker to get back on track in the second half of the month. Tuesday was a good start.

 

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[KJTchoup]

Tucker in a slump and hard hit numbers are lagging is a concern, but we are not worried at all about Shaw and his MLB leading poor hit metrics?

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Thank you for asking 

no it is not

[We Got The Whole 9]

1 hour ago, KJTchoup said:

Tucker in a slump and hard hit numbers are lagging is a concern, but we are not worried at all about Shaw and his MLB leading poor hit metrics?

Sure we are, but he's a rookie. His contact has been awful. He needs better barrel control and increased discernment for which pitches to swing at. He swings weakly at a lot of junk. Once he tightens that up his hard/EV should perk up a bit. But there are many adjustments that need to be made for sure.

[Jason Ross]

1 hour ago, KJTchoup said:

Tucker in a slump and hard hit numbers are lagging is a concern, but we are not worried at all about Shaw and his MLB leading poor hit metrics?

I've talked about this a few places, but the concern over a lot of Matt Shaw's EV's are largely overblown. It's a feature, not a bug in many ways. When you trade strikeouts for contact, you eventually make a decent amount of weak contact. This lowers your average exit velocity. By hitting pitches on the shadow of the plate more often instead of swinging and missing, you'll hit a few weak infield hits and you'll hit some weak infield ground balls. 

I'm not saying improvement isn't capable, possible, or even preferred, but this is what Shaw does, and has done. He hits a lot of balls. He probably swings a little too much. But high-swing+high-contact = low average exit velocity many times. He's got to learn a bit better about the pitches to swing at, and the pitches to leave go. Just because you can hit it doesn't mean you should. He's a rookie and this is a process.

That said, it's overblown. Shaw's not running a stupid high BABIP (.319, very do-able with his speed) and a 96wRC+ since returning with better mechanics. For a rookie this is decent. League 3b are hitting at a 97 wRC+ clip; so he's been virtually league average at the position offensively.  A lot of the EV issue has cropped up over a bad week which saw him struggle. Prior to that he was running a 148 wRC+ and a 7.7% barrel rate (since his re-promotion). We should expect the league and Shaw oscillate between one step forward, one step back as they figure each other out more. 

[Tryptamine]

Guy has a 153 wRC+, 18/19 on SB, and has already been worth 3.1 fWAR. No, no I'm not worried.